FCC loses approximately 600,000 net neutrality comments

After net neutrality opponents celebrated the claim that their letter campaigns caused more FCC-filed comments and complaints than there were supporters. However, the FCC recently announced in a blog post that they managed to lose around 600,000 comments. They said they were misplaced by their “18-year-old Electronic Comment Filing System (ECFS)”.

They claimed, due to the age of the systems, that the IT staff was made to “cobble solutions together MacGyver-style”. They explained in further detail by saying:

In parsing the XML files in question, it appears that nearly 680,000 of the comments were not transferred successfully from ECFS to the XML files. This is due to a technical error involving Apache Solr, an open source tool the FCC used to produce the XML files. We plan to fix this problem by issuing a new set of XML files after the New Year with the full set of comments received during the reply period. Despite the fact that this group of comments was not transferred to the XML files, our review indicates that these files were uploaded to ECFS for public review.

The FCC has said that they will release the file containing all comments online. Republican FCC staff have already started claiming whether this was a part of a net-neutrality discrediting conspiracy such as Matthew Berry:

After free-market forces win net neutrality reply comment round, @FCC mysteriously finds 680,000 more comments. It's a Festivus miracle!!

— Matthew Berry (@MatthewBerryDC) December 23, 2014

FCC petitions whether to allow Wifi blocking

Within the next few weeks the U.S Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will decide whether to invoke new rules regarding the ability of hotels to block customer Wifi hotspots within their premises.

The Federal Communications Commission Headquarters (Source: FCC)

The hotel Marriott International tried to block Wifi hotspots within their premises before only to find themselves with a $600,000 (£386,666) fine. This company in partnership with Ryman Hospitality Properties and The American Hotel and Lodging Association recently requested clarification on whether hotels should be allowed to carry out this type of blocking within their premises in order to ‘protect their internal Wifi services’ from the FCC.

The petition requested that the FCC “declare that the operator of a Wifi network does not violate [U.S. law] by using FCC-authorized equipment to monitor and mitigate threats to the security and reliability of its network,” even if the actions can interfere with the working of mobile devices nearby. Last Friday (19th December 2014), the FCC closed the comment period for the petition, meaning that it is not solely up to the FCC whether to agree or disagree.

The ability to create Wifi hotspots has become incredibly easy (Source: Unknown)

As mentioned above, the Marriott has tried this tactic before, despite its illegality, causing the FCC to fine them after complaints about the practice came in. The complaint stated that the hotel used the signal blocking features of a Wifi monitoring system that stopped their customers from connecting to other Wifi sources. The hotel charged, for their own Wifi, a fee of $250 (£161) to $1,000 (£644) per device.

Many people appealed to the FCC during the comment period asking them to deny the hotels petition. In October the FCC released a statement stating that it is illegal to block outside Wifi hotspots. Google, in a comment written by their lawyers, said that “While Google recognizes the importance of leaving operators flexibility to manage their own networks, this does not include intentionally blocking access to other commission-authorized networks, particularly where the purpose or effect of that interference is to drive traffic to the interfering operator’s own network,”

The Marriott hotel group (Source: Marriott)

Many companies and people including the mobile trade group CTIA and Microsoft urged the FCC to reject the petition. However, Marriott argued, saying that the blocking is justified as long as the means in which they doing it are not illegal. They continued saying that the hotspots could be used to “launch an attack against [a hotel] operator’s network or threaten its guests’ privacy” possibly by getting access to personal data including credit card numbers. Also in the petition they said that many Wifi Hotspots operating around or in a hotel can damage the overall performance of the hotels own network.

The group has gained support from Cisco Systems, who produce networking software, who said that “Unlicensed spectrum generally should be open and available to all who wish to make use of it, but access to unlicensed spectrum resources can and should be balanced against the need to protect networks, data and devices from security threats and potentially other limited network management concerns,” written by Mary Brown their director of government affairs. They say that the hotspots should be allowed in public places, but the “balance shifts in enterprise locations, where many entities use their Wifi networks to convey company confidential information [and] trade secrets,” she concluded.

North Korea and the Sony Hack

On the 24th of November this year, Sony Pictures Entertainment was hacked revealing details of employees, records and unreleased films to the world. According to the hackers, who are calling themselves the Guardians of Peace (#GOP), claim to have taken over 100 terabytes (100000 gigabytes) of data.

North Korea

The FBI (The Federal Bureau of Investigations) claimed on December the 19th that links between the hack and the Pyongyang government had been uncovered. However, a representative from the North Korean government denied any involvement from North Korea in the cyber-attack. Even if the North Korean government had no involvement with the attack it is still possible that any of their supporters or sympathizers could have initiated the attack.

The North Korea spokesperson said, during an announcement, that they would like to “conduct a joint investigation with the U.S” claiming that the accusations were “groundless slander” that were “being perpetrated by the U.S.by mobilizing public opinion”. The spokesperson continues saying that there “will be grave consequences” should the “U. S refuse to accept our proposal for a joint investigation and continue to talk about some kind of response by dragging us into the case”

An NSC spokesperson, Mark Stroh, dismissed this idea responding “We are confident the North Korean government is responsible for this destructive attack. We stand by this conclusion.”. He went on to say “The Government of North Korea has a long history of denying responsibility for destructive and provocative actions.”.

The FBI claimed that North Korea’s actions fell “outside the bounds of acceptable state behavior”. Obama has said in a statement that North Korea acted alone in the attack after Washington began consultations with Japan, China, South Korea and Russia requesting their assistance in ‘reigning in North Korea’

The Interview

Most of the hype around the attack is related to the unreleased film The Interview, which depicts two journalists recruitment by the CIA to assassinate the North Korean leader during a visit. China has called the film “not a movie for Hollywood and U.S society to be proud of”. The hackers have claimed that there would be severe consequences if the film was to be released, causing nearly all cinemas to pull out from showing the film. Following this, Sony Pictures has stopped the Christmas release of the film, which Obama called “a mistake” wishing that Sony had consulted him before revoking the film.

However, after spending over $44 million (£28 million) on The Interview (Starring Seth Rogen and James Franco) Sony says they have ‘not caved in’ to the hackers and are still looking for alternative platforms to release the film, but so far a spokeswoman for Sony has said they have not further release plans for the film at the current time..

America

At the current time, Obama’s options are limited in what to do against North Korea even after his stern warning. President Obama declined to indulge specifics about any actions that would be taken or that were under consideration.

For over 50 years, North Korea has been under sanctions due to human rights and nuclear weapon programs. Because of this, they have become better at hiding their actions, often money-gaining activities by avoiding the traditional banks.

In response to what North Korea calls Washington’s ‘hostile policy’, they have vowed to boost their ‘nuclear power’ saying that they believed that America was attempting to invade them under the mask of human rights abuse.

The Virus

The FBI announced that after a technical analysis of the software used in the Sony hack, they had discovered links between it and ‘other malicious cyber activity’ that had been previously tied to Pyongyang. But other than this, they refused to answer how they came to the conclusion that North Korea was to blame for the attack.

Retaliation

Experts within the US say that their options could include cyber retaliation, financial sanctions, criminal indictments against those implicated in the attack or an increase in military forces in South Korea who are still, technically, at war with North Korea.

However, any of these sanctions would not cause a great deal of damage to the North due to their isolation and the already imposed sanctions by America due to human rights and its nuclear program. Likewise, there is also a chance that too large of a retaliation would send North Korea over the edge into larger warfare, whether it be physical or cyber.

3D Printing in Space

Commander Barry Wilmore, who is currently on the International Space Station (ISS) called into NASA today in need of a wrench. In normal circumstances, NASA would have arranged one to be sent up in the next mission to the ISS; however, due to recent developments in technology all they had to do was send the 3D model file for printing.

Commander Barry Wilmore holding the 3D printed wrench (Source: NASA)

The ISS currently contains a 3D printer designed by the company Made In Space. They overheard the Commander mentioning that he needed a ratcheting socket wrench and jumped at the opportunity to make one. If using the conventional methods as explained above, it could have taken months to receive the wrench, yet using this process it was there within a matter of hours.

The is not the first item that has been printed in space, but it is, however, the first to be designed for the needs of an astronaut. The 3D printer was mainly used to “characterize the effects of long-term microgravity on our 3D-printing process, so that we can model and predict the performance of objects that we manufacture in space in the future,” explained Mike Chen, from Made in Space. He continued saying that “On the ISS this type of technology translates to lower costs for experiments, faster design iteration, and a safer, better experience for the crew members, who can use it to replace broken parts or create new tools on demand,”.

Cortana on Windows 10

Microsoft has recently released early footage of Cortana for Windows 10. Cortana was released by Microsoft this year as a rival to Apple’s Siri and Google Now. It is Microsoft’s new virtual assistant that is slowly being distributed throughout the globe through phones and tablets. However, Cortana for Windows 10 will be the first introduction to their new Virtual assistant.

Cortana on Windows Phones (Source: Michael Homnick)

Currently, Cortana’s integration with Windows 10 is not pretty, but, as mentioned many times during the video, it is only in a pre-build designed for testing. All the basics of Cortana on Windows Phones have already been built into it such as dialling of Skype contacts, calendar appointments, alarms and reminders. The beginnings of music integration and directions have been added, but, as explained, have not been linked to their required data sources so don’t work in the current iteration.

Getting directions using Cortana on Windows 10 (Source: WinBeta)

This will be the first look for many at Cortana as it was previously limited to Windows Phones exclusively so we will be keeping our fingers crossed that it turns out well.